


To Be (a living oxymoron)

by monocrow



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Crisis, Gen, Introspection, Purple Prose, Stream of Consciousness, just a continuation of the saga of me projecting onto roman, sort of but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24851638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monocrow/pseuds/monocrow
Summary: His emotions feel real and vibrant on a canvas, but he can't help but get caught up on the fact that he can't feel the warm hum of life underneath his skin.Roman has an existential crisis. Janus is there.
Relationships: Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders/Deceit | Janus Sanders
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	To Be (a living oxymoron)

Roman can make the imagination anything he wants it to be. He can fill it with rolling plains full of shimmery cattails and golden wheat. He can make it a summery day, one just barely cool enough not to leave blistering burns on the ridges of his cheekbones (not that he would burn either way, being a figment of the imagination and all that). Then he can change those rolling plains wintery. He can cover it in boundless white snow and creaking trees, ones with trunks wider than he is tall, where snow pillows where the roots wind up above ground.

He doesn't do any of those things, though.

He opens up a grove in a forest, decked in spring-like weather and foliage. Soft and mossy green, the kind that your feet sink into, the kind that leaves wet dew on your shoes and loose blades of grass stuck to the bottoms of your soles. Stems and leaves, with pink and yellow and blue petals that all meld together like molten gold, plush like a pillow in some flouncy bourgeois' mansion.

There's a dark, evening blue sky, needy with stars. Stars that are spilled over on a rotten, moth eaten canvas, all in patterns of every constellation he can remember off the top of his head, on the tip of his tongue. They're not in season for this faux-spring of his, not even the hot humidity of real life. 

Real life.

That's where the problem lies, isn't it?

Real life where you can touch without the fuzzing tingle of imagination and the dreamy visuals when you stop thinking too hard. Real life where you can feel the brush of skin on skin and summer on your cheeks, and then your shoulders and fingers and toes without having to artificially think it up and pinch your brows. Even when real summer is hot and too much and overwhelming, because it's real and you don't get to control it.

Sometimes Roman thinks he has too much control.

Sometimes he thinks he doesn't want to be nothing but a facet of another human being – something he isn't and never can be.

Sometimes he wants to be  _ more. _

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes.

"Frankly, I'm affronted that you would think I have anything to do with what reality has to say," Janus says. His yellow capelet blends with the tulips and the narcissuses. 

"What?" He asks instead of,  _ How did you get here? How did you know? _

"You said,  _ that's where the problem lies." _

"Ah," Roman says, and rips out a tuft of grass. He opens his palm and lets the wind blow it away. "I didn't mean lies as in  _ liar_ _._ I meant where it's at."

Janus shrugs and takes a seat next to him. "Same difference," he says.

"I really don't think it is."

Roman thumbs at the ground – moist dirt, brittle twigs and broken chips of bark, ant holes and stray leaves. He didn't think to make insects, but they're still there, apparently. He swirls his finger until it makes mud ooze up underneath it. There are birds chirping, somewhere far off, somewhere he can't see them. There's an impossible ecosystem of plants and animals and wildlife that feeds off each other, all nestled together in this foresty grove.

_But,_ he  thinks. But he's not in a faraway meadow in some fantasy land – he's in the darkened recesses of Thomas' mind next to the incarnation of his deceit.

"Are you happy?" Roman asks, after a moment.

"I'm always happy," Janus says, toying with petals of a flower – he must have plucked it at some point – he pulls off one of them, pinched between his fingers.

Roman hums –  _ he's lying_ _,_ he thinks.

"What about you?" Janus asks. It's disinterested and bored, poignant and sharp, like all things he does, apparently.

Roman picks another piece of grass. "Yes. Why wouldn't I be?"

Janus scrunches up his nose. He tastes the bittersweetness of a lie, and he rolls it across the dip of his tongue. It reeks of one of the taffies that your grandma might give you; sweet enough to make your eyes water and chewy enough to stick to your teeth when you try to swallow it.

"Of course," he says, instead of all of that. It drips with that same sweetness and honey and sugary phlegm that clogs his throat. It makes Roman frown.

"Don't mock me, snake."

"I'm not mocking you," he mocks.

Roman doesn't doesn't say anything at that, and keeps thumbing at the ground. He keeps avoiding eye contact – it always feels so painfully intimate, yet distant, like he can never quite wrap his head around how much is too much, how little isn't enough. 

Janus curls his finger around the stem and pinches it until it's bleeding. The liquid clings to his gloves, clear-green and sticky. He rolls his fingers and it's gone just as quickly, like it doesn't matter that he squeezed it until its skin broke.

Janus can feel Roman's eyes on him, watching the way his fingers move. He sighs. "Are you going to tell me what's wrong, or am I going to have to ask you myself?"

Roman pauses – still pulling grass – and properly looks Janus in the eyes for the first time. "Why do you care?"

"We can't have Thomas under preforming in the creativity department, can we?"

Roman barks a dry laugh. "I guess not."

"So," Janus prods, once he realizes Roman isn't going to say anything of his own accord. There's that questioning lilt on his tongue that Roman can't help but begin to hate.

"Why are we here?" He asks. It's not directed at Janus so much as it is the constellations and the sky – it's too bright out for them to logically be there, to summery looking for these flowers to bloom. 

_ (What's their point, their purpose. What happens when Thomas dies. Are they even living for themselves.) _

His emotions feel real and vibrant on a canvas, but he can't help but get caught up on the fact that he can't feel the warm hum of life underneath his skin.

"Who knows," Janus says, plucking another petal. "It's best not to get too caught up on it."

Roman laughs; still dry and humorless and bitter. "That's all?  _ Try not to get too caught up on it?" _

"What?" Janus bites. "Do you want me to tell you the secrets of the universe? Sorry," he drawls, "but I'm really not the person to be asking that."

Roman doesn't bite back in return – he just digs his finger into the dirt until it's caked under his nail and staining his skin. It's a dark, warm color, soft and cool where it touches his skin. "Sorry," he says.

Janus sighs. "All I'm saying is that we'll all die and rot away. It doesn't matter what you do leading up to that point, so try not to worry about it until then." He stands up and brushes himself off, swiping at all the dirt that isn't there. "Even if it turns out there isn't an afterlife for us, it's not like you'll have anything to regret at that point. So just keep living."

"What if you don't want to?" Roman asks. It's not a question he meant to ask, a slip of the tongue paired with the honesty that he always seems to be stripped down to whenever he's around Janus. 

Janus blinks at him, runs a gloved thumb down his jaw in thought. "Don't live for yourself, then. For Thomas, the rest of the sides, whoever. At least for while you have to."

"That sounds like a boring existence."

"Just do what you must," he says, waving a hand about and adjusting his hat. "Just let me know if you need anymore impromptu therapy sessions. Like I said, we can't have Thomas's creativity down for the count."

"I'm not down," Roman says, pressing his lips.

Janus tastes lead on his tongue and winces. He rolls his eyes to cover it. _"_ _Of course_ _,_ Roman. I  _ totally _ believe you."

"I'm not _lying,"_ he spits.

Roman thinks he can taste the lead on his tongue, too.

**Author's Note:**

> i like the idea that janus tastes lies


End file.
